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Monday, September 21, 2015

I posted a few of these last week so I'm following up with a few more! I love how creative students got with this project! I gave them just a few guidelines, discussing symmetry for their creature as well as that it should be made MOSTLY with dots. At the end they could add a few non-dot details such as antennas and feet.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

I see students weekly at one of my schools and not as often at the other, so to keep them together (and keep my sanity!) we continue adding to the same project at the school where I see them more often. To make our dots look more like some of Vashti's dots we added stitching. I considered just having students draw or paint different types of lines as Vashti does but this was way more fun!

We punched an even number of holes around the edges of our dots.

Then we experimented with different stitches like a straight stitch and a whip stitch. They turned out so neat! The only problem is, now I want both schools to complete this step... But I suppose that would defeat the purpose! ;)

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

September 15-ish is here! We have been celebrating International Dot Day by creating artwork inspired by Peter H. Reynolds' book, The Dot. It's an inspiring story about a girl who is encouraged by her art teacher to "make a mark and see where it takes you." Each class has watched a quick 3 minute animated version of The Dot I found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=t5mGeR4AQdM as we continue work on our dot projects. 5th grade is channeling Alexander Caulder in their dot mobiles:

Saturday, September 12, 2015

I never know what I'm going to get when I do self portraits with kindergarten! I have to say I was pretty impressed with how they followed directions. We discussed the face shape, the proportions and how using a few simple lines would make our faces look more realistic. I plan to do this again later in the year and go into more detail for the eyes and other features.

This little guy got so upset when he realized his was crooked! It turned out to be one of my favorites!

Check out the hands on this one! Note that we did not go into detail about drawing hands, he just did this on his own!

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

I just tried not to look this week... I promise I taught these students how to properly use their brushes, but when using them all day as we did last week and yesterday, it's inevitable that they'll look like this:

Ugh... The horror!! Oh well, they cleaned up like a charm! (After about 45 minutes of washing.) It was worth it though, I think the kids enjoyed their first week in art and we got a beautiful start on our first projects, which will be based on the book, The Dot, by Peter H. Reynolds. I'm starting the year off a little different this year as we prepare for a celebration of International Dot Day coming up around September 15-ish. I usually start the year with our Art By Me fundraiser, but this year we'll be doing that in the spring to give us more time to create our masterpieces. Happy First Week back!

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I have been teaching elementary school art for 10 years. I love drawing, painting, and creating things. The only thing better than creating art, is being able to TEACH it to others! I always tell my students to color dark and heavy with colored pencils or crayons, and I often say "Color it like you MEAN it!" which is where my blog title comes from!